


five o'clock somewhere

by ruruka



Category: Death Note (Anime & Manga)
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-01-22
Updated: 2019-01-22
Packaged: 2019-10-14 15:39:16
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,897
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17511305
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ruruka/pseuds/ruruka
Summary: light makes breakfast.





	five o'clock somewhere

Three:fifty-two. The sky is dark, pitch, and his tendons all ache from the motionless lapse of overnight where no rest has been clasped. Midnight had woken him from what could be three hours rest, from what could be none, from what could be months now of no sleep beside glaring screen light and tapping fingertips well past the moon. It’s better than the first month he’d spent resolutely on the floor with a wrist dangling overhead, given in only to sharing the rich hotel bedding once he feared paralysis of his burning lumbar. And L had been sweet then (the type that one gags on after the first bite, certainly) in offering up the second empty side, he’ll push over, it’d be much more comfortable, he’s sure- all until he himself had found it so ungentlemanly to refuse again, yes, that’s all. Yet now, yet now, he's glazing the eyes to his left side where the other’s drill into the screen of the laptop computer set up as a barricade between them; L lays lazy to a side, fingers idling on the keyboard to every so often click with fury that demands ears perk from rest, face milky beneath the glow that drives the faintest pink to border the wet edges of his eyes.

Three:fifty-eight.

Though he cares for no spotlight, Light cannot keep his exhale curled up in his lungs any longer. With it follows a gaze, plucked to cast over the top of the computer screen, unblinking, no patience. “You’re awake,” murmurs against the dark, the cold of the room outside the comforter they share (one L lays atop now, pinning Light’s left side in the tautness of his tuck- jackass).

“It’s impossible to sleep listening to you all night,” Light responds, malice not near as potent as malaise. “Jeez, Ryuzaki, can’t you go one night without being up on your computer for hours? Or tossing and turning all over the place- you know what, I guess I prefer you on the computer.” Another sigh flares his nose. “...You could at least cover your mouth when you cough. Or eat less crunchy snacks. Or, gee, I don’t know, _sleep._ ”

The mention of snacks had lifted L’s thumbnail to his mouth, Light sees, though cannot care to make note of it with such a _stare_ still stepping across him like cat’s feet (and were he in a better state, he’d think to shout the comparison right out, that L is his mangy little cat that pokes his feet all over his abdomen all night, digs his claws in when he’s pushed away, bats his face for breakfast just as soon as the sun rises- but he must digress, or else begin to associate cats with such a cruel taste in his mouth). Light blinks, breathes. L’s lips part the most subtle lush. “I suppose I’m somewhat of an insomniac.”

“You suppose,” he scoffs, head turning back to face the ceiling, hands at his middle, exhaling against a close of the eyes. A praying close.

At four-oh-four, he feels the pull of divinity on his mind, opacity vague to the world around, relax relax relax. It’s delightful. And then L types half a cacophonous paragraph in the span of seconds. And then Light wishes he truly _were_ the kind of killer he’s being suspected of, because it’d be much more a tranquil slumber once L chokes on some cardiac arrest.

Eyelids gush open like curtains at the coming dawn. To the blanket, his knuckles rival the whiteness, peering over another hot-faced note at his roommate and his sprinting fingers. L sniffs, the chain between them clinking as he lifts a sleeve to wipe his nose. Idle, absent. Not a blink.

Another clinking trails the raise of Light’s hand to fold back his covers, slip from the sheets to a new heavy-faced standing. Arm drawn to hanging above him, L glances up and over the path he walks, questioning in his thousand pound voice, “Do you have to use the restroom again?”

Despite it, he remains stretched out in his spot, a lazy lazy cat (no no, don’t make him hate cats again) a lazy lazy motherfucker sprawled out beneath no sunshine as Light’s movement tugs his wrist along. But, oh, it’ll be only moments, he’s sure, once he says, “No,” and bites a yawn away, “I’m hungry.”

The meager bit of light in the room pinches away with a close of the laptop. Eyes adjusting, Light can see the way L drags his gaze over one shoulder, leers gelid together, before lifting either leg over the bed and lurching a slow bound forward, hunched up and interest only in the dark of his irises. Light pulls them forward into the twilight of the hall that lurks outside their room. Too easy.

Headquarters allots them one kitchen alone for each floor, though he’d suspect no other members of the task force will have their heads in the refrigerator at- a glance to the gleam of his watch -four:thirteen AM. That’s L’s job, and with him hung here in tow, Light can sigh a sweet feather melody, hands popping his spine forward in a stretch. His peripheral paints the portrait of L huddled close beside him, tongue poked just a touch enough to taste his bottom lip, drawing back around his mild tone, “I’m in the mood for scones.”

Cool light opens against their faces, L’s curious eyes boggling just beneath the lift of Light’s arm against the fridge door. “I’m making crepes.”

“Crepes,” repeats behind him, once the door’s dropped shut, carton of milk placed to the adjacent counter. He palms an egg as L goes on, captivated, “How excellent. Watari makes a perfect strawberry crepe. Your version will have to do for now..”

Lifted from the top cupboard, flour sifts its way into a cup measure. “I never said I was making any for you.”

Well beyond impudent, Light knows, though he can’t pass up the chance to grip leverage over him, swallowing back a smirk as he demands his eyes forward still onto the measuring.

It spills, very nearly, outside the mixing bowl beneath once L croons, “That would be quite selfish of you. Nearly as selfish as wanting to be the sole God of a new world you’ve created.” Light taps the flour into the bowl without a remark but the twitch to his lip. L pokes a finger along his own. “So I’d like mine with strawberries.”

Hardly does he need to strike the eggshell against the bowl so much so that the heat of his glower could shatter it; fingers nimble, he spoons the mixture together, liquids folding in, salt, a pad of butter, all whisked beneath the careful eye of the world’s most meticulous detective.

“You could help, you know,” Light murmurs, still behaving the brat stolen from every last nap, though his voice does ring soft as it can as his focus shifts to the side. Knuckles grasp the lip of the counter with L crouched beside, nose just peeking above to peer at the flame flicking up from the gas top burner. No motion carries him gone, even inched. Light could roll his eyes if they weren’t so stung, rathering to bleed his attention down on pouring the most faultless ring of batter. L observes him with the intrigue of a child setting sights upon the shine of Christmas bulbs. Though it’s almost _daunting_ to take such scrutiny, he cannot whisk away the memory of it being another watching him with curious delight, and Sayu had always cheered to the victory of a _perfect_ flip, killing the anxiety that would simmer the same as the batter.

The spatula shimmies below the surface, pan handle brought in his touch away from the flame to aid his spectacle. _Flip._ Flawless crepe. L’s expression burns with satisfaction.

It sits that way, nose tipping up higher every so often to watch closer his pours and flips and folds, lured in so especially once the insides of two have been filled with fine chopped fruit, tucked against themselves into squares that become home to a handful of deliriously red strawberry slices. Crouched there still, L wets his lips, Light observes, the pair of them pierced by quiet that has done no pain the whole way through. The chain nudges L to stand, watching him over and over and over again as he steps away from the refrigerator, right hand jostling up down. One finger presses the nozzle. Whipped cream builds a peak atop either plate. He makes to set the can back in its place, paused only once his sleeve is protested against with a tug. Light glances back to L, the flavor of ardor in his eyes as he shifts them between he and the desire in his hand, and a smirk could take Light, yet he’s placid as he turns to spiral the left plate’s portion twice as high. Tile presses cold against their feet. L stares his usual _vast_ way at the mess of cream, tilts his chin back toward Light, stuck equal in halt until the nozzle is lifted high, _hushing_ a three-second swirl into L’s mouth before it’s set down again. This time, Light does not hide the growling simper.

Porcelain clinks to the table at four:thirty-seven AM. The chair to his left side squeaks its wood as it is clamored up upon, and no time is wasted before two fingers pinch the top of a fork to stab up fruit and cream. Light lets them be a while, watching L pick at what he likes before moving a fork to slice the corner from his own. He’s done impeccably, judging by the taste that meets him at his first bite, judging by that when he looks up from that first bite, L’s plate is ravaged and twice as scraped as before. “Don’t forget to breathe, Ryuzaki,” he reminds in the scent of a chuckle. Halfmast eyes scan over his face, focus damned for his dessert and cheek unbothered by the dots of whipped cream speckling it. The world’s greatest detective. Light shakes a scoffing laugh. The chair creaks as he leans forward to swipe a thumb across the mess. So responsive as branches to breeze, L blinks off toward it as it lingers there a moment, feeling the sentiment of his skin, breaths gone to mingle in this cold kitchen morning dark; and neither have expected it, the way his two hands lift, all the delicate, to grasp at Light’s wrist, pinning his finger there still on his lip corner until it is brought between them, index tip licked of its cream, pulled forth still to rest in his mouth up to the first knuckle, sucking licking, tender and deep in the gaze, and while Light has yet to lean at all forward to begin with, the flush of his imagination carries back to reality once he reappears within it.

“What are you staring at me like that for?” drones L with one cheek stuffed, cream untouched in its spot beside his mouth. “You aren’t enjoying your crepe?”

“Huh- oh,” Light swallows, tips himself back straight from where daydream had slumped his posture. “No, it’s fine. I’m just...tired.” _Good God is he ever._

L takes the excuse as satisfactory enough to delve back into his plate, lifting a shred of crepe between two fingers to dangle above his tongue. Jaw unhinged, it drops within his immediate chomp, and Light decides he’d ought to worry about chewing the banana slices in his own mouth before he drops dead right here.

There’s no room in their relationship for a relationship. He recalls something of the psychology elective he’d taken as a second year, something about the subconscious roaming for its greater thirsts when unstimulated enough in truth- but anybody who’s paid to stand up at a blackboard and teach will say anything just to get through a shift. Never would his mind be so uncouth as to wish for the unholy, the heat of skin touching skin, lips on his throat, two backs for one creature that blooms scarlet lust- perhaps right here upon the breakfast table while the others are asleep, he’ll lay his scapula to the wood and let himself be loved in the dirtiest fashion, for God’s sake, they’re already sharing a bed and watching each other shower, there’s less than a centimeter splitting the final fireworks from cracking- and _good God is he ever fucking exhausted_ to be sitting here imagining all over again what he’s just been through. There’s no room in their relationship for a relationship, not one of fingers in mouths or any other orifice. Light blinks. L’s gnawing the head off a strawberry.

It takes six hours of sleep in two nights to find something as egregious-looking as L to be attractive. He makes note of that, and makes note to ask after a prescription for a tranquilizer just as soon as possible.

“If you aren’t going to eat that, I’ll take it,” breaks him free again of reverie again. He blinks the haze away to catch L sharing the focal point of his pulseless gaze, dropping it to his plate missing only two bites whilst the one opposite holds just about that left; Light raises his fork, knows not where it’s headed a solid quarter minute until it sunders the sweet through the middle, slides one half onto L’s plate, keeps the rest for himself. The other drops something of a nod before shredding fork tongs down the new acquisition. With his cream of chicken for a brain, Light insists his attention remain in the life before him. His glance falls to the silver at one wrist, not the glint that binds but rather the two hands racing through time together. Four:fifty-one. Close to an hour since they’d begun their tryst with hate. And such a word to use- he snorts in a shake of the head for himself the lone, twisting his watch face away to grasp at his utensil again. The other hand fidgets upon the table, cold with the clench of capture, knowing no home besides it. Fantasy runs touch along his jawline to tip his head into love, because not so for a moment can he be at peace with himself lest he be plagued by sea salt vineyards, bell towers, cake mix from the box with a plastic spoon stuck within. Yes, that’s his L. And he feels it, the way he’s made a connection between them like lovers at sunset, like grace said before the drinks are poured, a seance summoning, a walk down the shoreline to catch that sunset and catch another before they’re gone off the cliff- yes, just be blunt into saying their fingers are woven would he never, but his voice is smoke as he comments on how freezing the other’s hand is, and his ears sip honey as L mumbles something back around a mouthful that he can’t quite make out, but it could be so for the rationale that the real life L has spoken it, not the one he sits with in his head and holds onto without woe. But real life L has spoken, so he’d really better tune in a listen- but it’s just that, as soon as he does, there are no more words to be spilled from there, only from the split of hardwood to kitchen tile where feet scuff unwelcomed and a yawn billows into a fanning palm. Two gargoyles, they hunch over shoulders to peer at his entrance, groggy groggy groggy all the way to blinding himself by the fridge light, pouring orange juice halfway up a glass and choking on it the second he turns around.

“ _Ghu-”_ gags Matsuda in a cough, hand to the chest that bends forward. “You guys scared the life out of me- I didn’t expect anybody to be awake at this hour… Ah, what are you two doing up, anyway?” Straightened, he washes a look across them, finger lifting to point before the shadow of a smile. “Did I interrupt a date?”

Light could gawk in immediacy at Matsuda’s upturned cowlicks or sleepy eyes or _MISA MISA FANCLUB_ tee, but he saves it once his attention draws down his arm and finds that where his quiet mind had imagined his reach cross the table to lace their fingers, the terrible force of actuality had mimicked him, and L’s hand certainly _is_ cold, and Light’s life certainly _is_ purgatory.

Quick as wit is he to snatch away the touch, rolling his shoulders backward and chin tipping a hard angle to peer over his way. Strawberry scarlet on the upper lip, L remains wordless, staring as if tomorrow shall come and be as regular as any and he’s not ever a care.

Legs scrape the kitchen tile.

“Here, Matsuda, have half a crepe.” He motions to his emptied seat. “I’m going back to sleep.”

“Huh? Oh wow, thanks, Light,” Matsuda beams, accepting his new position just in time to watch his higher superior be dragged away from his crouch across the table, fingers clinging just in time to his plate to carry it with him as he’s tugged back for the darkened hallway.

Breakfast has yet to ever been so tasteless.

Five o’clock.


End file.
